The Strangest Thing to Happen in a While
by Alyssa Wesner
Summary: In the Avenger's Universe, people are mysteriously disappearing without a trace, and the only people who can help are the first to go. Meanwhile, in the DC universe, people are popping up out of nowhere, and the villians seem to be up to something big. Rated T for language and possible action scenes.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N**

 **Hey, everyone. I haven't written in a while and this is just an idea I had that I decided to roll with. Just a warning that I am notoriously bad at finishing stories, by which I mean, I have never actually finished a story. Who knows, though, maybe I can break that streak this time. This is set before Age of Ultron and, I haven't decided yet whether I'm sticking with that Hawkeye or not. Other than that, I'm going with movieverse.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel or DC.**

Jane Foster was a brilliant scientist. She thoroughly believed this and prided herself on it. Recently though, she was starting to doubt herself. It wasn't that she no longer believed that she was brilliant, it was more like she had swam too far out to see and was no so far out of the known realm of things that she had grown up with that she couldn't even see the shore anymore. She was sure that she was going to drown if this strangeness continued. The past week certainly hadn't done anything to help her recent insecurity.

At the moment, as she crept towards Avenger's Tower, taking turns and roundabouts in an attempt to lose whomever she was sure was following her, she prayed to God and Odin and Jesus and Buddha and whomever else was out there for help. She _had_ to make it to the tower. There was no other option. If she didn't, this whole dimension could cease to exist. Not just Earth or the entire galaxy, but all of the galaxies, however many were out there would just disappear with no trace of ever having existed.

"Thor, where are you?" she whispered to herself, as she crossed a busy street while attempting to blend in with the crowd around her.

Of course, she knew the answer. He was in Asgard. He had come to see her before he went back, following the harmonic convergence. They had enjoyed a nice peaceful day together, and then he had left, promising to return soon. Of course, "soon" to him was a little longer than "soon" meant to her. Usually, that wasn't a problem, but this time she really needed to see him. He could help. She was sure.

When this strangeness had started a week before, she hadn't thought it was a big deal. If worse got to worst, Thor would show up. He always did. Add that to the fact that she hadn't seen him for almost six months now and he was really overdue to come help her out.

Over the course of the week, what had started out as seemingly malfunctioning equipment had escalated into strange data, terrifying revelations, and creepy silent men dressed in black suits following her around. She would have assumed that the men were SHIELD agents, except that SHIELD no longer existed since Hydra took over about two months before which meant that the men were either Hydra agents or members of some other, unknown organization. Neither option comforted her. On top of that, Darcy, Selvig, and Darcy's intern, Ian, had disappeared during the week, and none of the law enforcement agencies would even listen when Jane tried to tell them what was going on.

So now, here she was, making her way through busy New York City streets on her way to the Avengers Tower. Hoping against hope that Thor was there, or, at the very least, Tony Stark, not that she really enjoyed Stark's presence. She had met the man once and he was much too full of himself for her liking, even so, he may be the only one aside from Thor who would have an idea of what she was talking about.

She pushed on, winding her way through New York City while darting around corners and ducking into shops every once in a while, keeping an eye out for men in black suits which was, honestly, hopeless. The majority of men around were in dark grey or black suits since it was lunch hour.

Finally, she made it to the bottom of the ridiculously tall tower. Staring up at it, she wondered if Stark was even more full of himself than she had originally thought. Shaking off the thought since it didn't actually matter, she reached for the door handle and pulled….only to find it locked.

"Dammit!" she shouted in exasperation and punched at the glass door. In a bout of stupidity, she decided to actually punch the glass door which lead to a whole string of cussing. This attracted a couple of stares from passersby to whom she smiled and nodded hello to. They continued on, and Jane calmed herself down in order to reassess her situation.

If she couldn't get the Avenger's help, then she, along with the entire dimension, was probably screwed. So, basically, she needed to get their attention no matter what.

She was considering either scaling the building or stripping right there on the doorstep when she noticed a little gold plaque along with a button at about chest height on her right. Squinting at the plaque, she found that it read "Doorbell" in fancy letters.

As soon as she pressed the doorbell, a light came on just above the plaque and suddenly shot upwards towards the top floor.

Jane sighed.

Tony Stark will always be Tony Stark, she supposed.

Just as she thought that, Tony's voice came over the intercom. "The speaker on my end is broken because Steve and Bruce got drunk and….You know what? That doesn't matter. Anyway, I'll be down in a minute, and you better have a good reason for ringing that doorbell. For example, you're selling Girl Scout cookies."

Jane let a small chuckle at that, and took a step back from the door, waiting for it to open. She glanced around. Lunch hour had ended, now, and the street was almost deserted. There were a few people here and there, but they were mostly homeless people or businessmen running late on their way back to the office. Usually there were tourists, but they were absent due to the muggy rain that had been on and off all morning.

She sighed. Tony sure was taking his time. Then again, maybe he wasn't, and she was just being impatient. She had no idea how long ago he had come over the intercom.

Suddenly, she dropped to the ground feeling a strange pressure on her head. It slowly increased and kept increasing to the point where it felt like her head would explode. She looked around for someone to ask for help, but she couldn't focus. The pain in her head had caused everything to go blurry.

She reached out her hand and felt the glass in front of her. Using the door handle as a support, she started to pull herself up.

All at once, the door handle disappeared, the air grew cold, and everything went quiet and dark. In the next moment, Jane was falling.

By the time Tony got the door, Jane was gone and there was no trace that she had ever been there. Still though, he opened the door and glanced around.

"Damn!" he said, after realizing that there really wasn't anyone there. "I was so hoping for some Thin Mints!"

As he walked back to his penthouse elevator he thought to himself, _Who the hell would be crazy enough to play Ding-Dong-Ditch at Avengers Tower? You know we used to have a camera for things like this. If only Rogers and Bruce hadn't had that stupid bet about how the Hulk can hold his liquor better than the Star-Spangled-Man-with-a-Plan. Maybe then, my console wouldn't have a shield-shaped hole in it or, even better, it wouldn't smell like Hulk puke._

 **Sorry if the characters are a bit off. Not totally sure where I'm going with this. Review if you have any ideas or if you just like the story.**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N So I'll try to update once a week but I make no promises.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Justice League, Avengers, or Doctor Who, which I stole a few lines from since I simply couldn't resist. The lines are from the episode The Doctor's Wife featuring the 11** **th** **Doctor. Idk what season.**

"Hey, guys," Tony said, as he walked into main room of the Avengers Tower to find Clint, Natasha, Steve, and Bruce already there. "The weirdest thing happened yesterday. Somebody played Ding-Dong-Ditch at the Avengers Tower."

Silence answered Tony, and he gave them all a look. "Come on, that's at least a little weird," he said as he sat down in a chair across from Natasha.

"No?" Captain America replied, as if he wasn't too sure what he was talking about.

"Do you know who the culprit is?" Natasha asked.

"Ah…No," Tony replied.

"Don't we have cameras for that sort of thing?" Clint asked.

"Well, we did but-" Tony started to explain but was cut off by Steve.

"Uh, question," Steve stated.

"What?" Tony asked.

"I'm afraid I'm not really sure what we are talking about here. I thought I did but, now I'm not so sure," Steve replied. "So, what exactly is Ding-Dong-Ditch?"

"Come on, Cap!" Tony said, "Surely they had that around in your day. I'm pretty sure its been around since doorbells were invented. Before that, it was probably Knock-Knock-Run-for-your-life-before-they-get-the-musket."

"I believe what Tony is trying to say," Bruce cut-in, "is that it's the name for the game kids play when they ring the doorbell and then disappear before you can answer the door."

"Oh," Steve replied, "I didn't know that had a name."

"Glad that's cleared up," Natasha replied, "Now, what was this about the camera, Tony?"

"Oh, right," Tony cleared his throat, "As I was saying, we did have a camera but then a couple of our…um… _colleagues_ made some poor life choices."

"Hold on just a minute," Steve said, jumping to his feet, "that was not at all my fault. I told you, the Hulk stole my shield."

"Are you sure about that?" Tony asked. "Can you even remember what happened that night?"

"I have a photographic memory," Steve said proudly, before continuing, "…and as it pertains to that night, it's _completely_ blank."

"So…no?" Clint asked.

"Pretty sure that's what he just said," Bruce replied.

"Well, the shield was pretty bad," Tony said, "and, as much as love to blame the Cap, the camera probably would have survived had the Hulk not proceeded to puke into the shield shaped hole."

"So _that's_ what that smell is," Natasha commented.

"Umm…no, that smell is the new puke scented candles that I bought and placed strategically throughout the room. Apparently, it's a new fad that's sweeping the nation," Tony responded.

"Shut up, Tony," Black Widow commanded, throwing him a dark look.

Tony decided that it was best he didn't respond.

"Where's Thor?" Steve asked.

"He should be here," Natasha responded.

"I saw him earlier," Clint said, "He was looking for Jane."

Just then the elevator doors opened and an upset Thor strode into the room. "Have any of you seen Jane?" he asked somewhat frantically. "I went to her lab, her house, and searched the surrounding area, but I couldn't find her anywhere. Finally, I contacted Heimdall. He couldn't find her, Selvig, Darcy, or that boy who keeps hanging around Darcy."

"Ian, Darcy's intern," Pepper provided, suddenly walking into the room.

"Pepper, what are you doing here?" Tony asked, "Not that I'm not happy to see you, but I thought that you were working?"

"I am," Pepper replied. "I came to ask if you had heard from Dr. Fridder? He didn't come into work today, and I know you two had some project going last week."

"Last week? Fridder?" Tony asked, furrowing his brow, trying to think of who Pepper was talking about.

"Oh, Henry!" he shouted out, suddenly. "Really, he didn't come in today? He was supposed to track the abnormal readings that some of our researchers had noticed."

"Actually now that I think about it, you may be interested in them Bruce. They have Gamma signatures similar to that of the Tesseract, but more random."

"More random?" Bruce asked.

"Well, the Tesseract is one thing with one weak Gamma signature, but these are lots of tiny Gamma signatures that we have observed popping up all over the globe. They put off the same kind of Gamma radiation in the same pattern as the Tesseract. The only difference being that they put off less radiation overall." Tony explained.

Bruce simply nodded, "I'll look at it tonight."

"So, wait," Steve said, "we have people missing and random Gamma signature popping up around the globe. Could those be connected?"

Tony and Bruce both thought about it for a second. They looked at each other for a moment or two and seemed to be telepathically speaking. Finally, Bruce responded with, "Based on our experience with the Tesseract and the little we know about it, yes, they could be related."

"It's also possible that the phenomenon we observed is simply some aftereffect of the wormhole opened above this building last year. Of course, that certainly doesn't rule out the possibility that it's linked to the missing people," Tony added.

"So, basically, all we have is a theory?" Natasha asked.

"I guess you could call it that," Bruce replied.

"None of this helps me find Jane," Thor interjected. "Even if this is related to the Tesseract or the mini-Tesseracts that you have been detecting, we still have no way of finding her. Also, Heimdall could find her and all of the others if they were in any of the Nine Realms, so the fact that he couldn't means that they are not in this dimension."

Tony restrained himself from correcting Thor on the mini-Tesseracts comment. Just because their Gamma signatures were fairly consistent did not mean that the small abnormalities had any other qualities similar to the Tesseract. Sometimes it surprised Tony that Thor could claim to be from an advanced society when he seemed so oblivious to all that Tony knew as science.

"If they aren't in this dimension, then where could they be?" Steve asked.

Thor looked uncertain, and this wasn't really Bruce's element so Tony responded, "Another dimension, stuck between dimensions, a pocket universe, a bubble universe," Tony paused for a moment. "I think that's it."

"A bubble universe?" Clint asked. "Haven't heard of that one."

"Imagine a great big soap bubble with one of those tiny little bubbles on the outside," Tony explained.

"Okay…" Steve said in response.

"But it's nothing like that," Tony added.

"So, the missing people are possibly trapped in a tiny bubble universe stuck to the side of our bigger bubble universe?" Natasha asked, trying to wrap her head around the situation.

"Yes!…No! But if it helps, yes," Tony said, leaving everyone looking at him as if he were crazy. There was a slight chance that he was.

There was a moment of silence

"But, wait…how is that different from a pocket universe?" Clint asked.

Tony sighed and was about to launch into another- no doubt confusing- explanation when Bruce stopped him by saying, "For the moment, it doesn't really matter. What does matter is finding out whether we are right or wrong, after that we can figure out what to do next."

"And how do you figure out whether you are right or wrong?" Pepper piped in, making Tony feel bad since he had pretty much forgotten that she was there.

"Well-" Tony started to explain that he wasn't really sure when he was interrupted by JARVIS.

"Sir," the AI started, "there's a situation in Times Square."

"Show me," Tony ordered.

A two-foot tall 3-D holographic picture appeared on the coffee table. At first glance, there seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary. The picture was just an aerial view of Times Square. As the hologram started to zoom in, however, the Avengers noticed that something was very wrong indeed.

"Is that a tiger?" Clint asked, squinting at the small figure that an entire crowd of people was fleeing from.

"And an ostrich?" Bruce added, looking at another place in the holographic picture.

"Ostriches are pure evil," Steve commented, looking at the same spot in the picture as Bruce.

Resounding silence greeted him, causing him to glance up and find everyone except Thor looking at him with a myriad of expressions.

"What? They are," Steve said in his defense.

"I think we would all like to know the story behind that, Cap," Tony said.

Again, all except Thor nodded their heads in agreement.

"I think that we should go save those people, first," Steve responded, gesturing to the hologram.

"I think Steve is right," Thor added. "Those humans look like they are in a dire situation."

"Hold on just a second," Tony said, as he noticed something in the picture that the others had seemingly missed.

"JARVIS, can you get audio?" Tony asked.

"Just a moment, sir," the AI replied.

Less than a minute later, the sound of screams filled the room along with a single shout, "I am the Zookeeper, and you shall fear me!"

"Where is that coming from?" Bruce asked.

"Probably him," Natasha answered as she picked up on the same thing that Tony had just a moment before and she pointed to a lone figure in the middle of the mostly abandoned square.

"The Zookeeper?" Thor asked. "What does that mean?"

"I _do_ know that one," Steve said.

"Let's go," Clint said.

The rest of the team nodded their agreement.

Tony summoned his suit. "Thor and I will meet you there," he said before pushing his faceplate down into place. He was about to take off when he turned, looked at Bruce, and added, "Try not to Hulk out in my building," in his electronic Ironman voice.

A second later, Tony was gone with Thor following suit.

"Gee, thanks Tony," Bruce said, before following the other three to the elevator.

 **I'll admit this chapter was mainly here as a set-up for the next chapter, but it was also pretty fun to write. Also, I know way more DC characters than Marvel and I'm trying to keep X-men and Fantastic Four out of this fic (Spiderman may come in), so I came up with an original lame-ass villain since I couldn't think of a good Marvel one. Anyway, if there is a particular DC hero or villain that you want to show up later in the story just let me know in a review. That's all for now.**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N Sorry for the long wait. I haven't been very inspired or motivated lately. This is like the fifth rewrite of this chapter because all of the other ones sucked, and I refuse to post something that I consider crappy just for the purpose of plot development. Anyway, I'll do my best to post when I can. I realize that once a week is a little ambitious for me so I'll try for once every two weeks. Thank you to those who reviewed, it actually helped motivate me! Anyway, hope you enjoy!**

Tony was the first to arrive on the scene, and what he found was total chaos. The 3-D image had shown the team what was going on back at the tower, but it hadn't really captured the strangeness of the situation. You couldn't fully comprehend just how out of the ordinary it was until you were standing in the middle of the mostly abandoned square, watching all sorts of animals running wild.

Thor landed next to Tony only a few seconds later and he, too, seemed a little taken off guard by just how weird this situation was.

"You know, you see things like this all the times in movies," Tony said, "but that doesn't really prepare you to find it in real life."

"Movies?" Thor asked, looking at Tony with a confused expression.

Tony was about to respond when a look of understanding dawned on Thor's face. "Oh, right. Like _Pitch Perfect_."

This time it was Tony's turn to give a Thor a confused look.

"What?" Thor asked. "Jane loves it."

" _Okay_ ," Tony responded.

Thor scowled at him before asking, "What is the plan?"

Tony shrugged. "Find the Zookeeper, I guess. Though, we should probably make sure that no one is in immediate danger first."

"I'll find the Zookeeper," Thor decided. "You help those who need it."

Tony nodded. "Sounds good."

Thor was gone a second later, flying off in search of his target.

"You there JARVIS?" Tony asked.

"Yes, sir," JARVIS responded.

"Locate anyone who needs help. Prioritize them from greatest risk of injury to least," Tony commanded.

A second later, a list of locations appeared on the screen in front of Tony. "The first destination is just around this building," JARVIS informed him, referring to the building that Tony happened to be standing next to.

"What's faster? Over or around?" Tony asked.

"Over," JARVIS replied.

Tony suddenly shot off the ground and over the tall structure. As he neared the ground on the other side, he found that there was a family of four cornered by a large, angry, male lion. There was also a girl behind the lion, seemingly trying to lure it away from the family. She wasn't having much luck, especially since she was attempting to do this without getting herself killed in the process.

"Looks like I arrived just in time," Tony said, as he set down in between the family and the lion. "I've got this. You can leave," Tony said to the girl on the other side of the lion.

The girl stopped her calling to the large cat and put her hands on her hips. "You haven't done anything yet," she said.

"You sure about that?" Tony asked, gesturing to the lion in front of him, then himself, then the family behind him.

"Fine," the girl sighed. "So, what's your plan?"

"Distract the lion while you five escape," Tony replied.

"And then what? What's to stop him from going after other people?" the girl shot back.

"Geez, what's with you! I'm trying to help you out here and you're being all judgmental. Look, if the lion goes to attack other people, I'll deal with it when it comes up. For now, I'm more worried about them," Tony responded, pointing behind him to the family.

The girl seemed satisfied with his response. "Very well, you distract him, and I'll lead them to safety."

"Okay," Tony replied while thinking to himself, _Just who exactly does this girl think she is?!_

The lion suddenly roared and started advancing again.

Ignoring the frightening cries of the family, Tony calmly raised his hand and aimed at the lion. He sent off a blast of energy that just missed the lion, as he had planned. It wasn't that that he wouldn't kill the creature, if it came to that, but he wanted to avoid killing if possible.

The lion halted its advance and stood there, unsure of himself for a moment.

"Get ready to run," Tony said to the family as he once again took aim at the lion. He shot off another blast that scorched the ground just to the left of where the lion stood.

The lion roared and started to charge at Tony.

"Go!" Tony commanded and took off in the opposite direction of the family. Knowing that he couldn't go to fast or he would risk losing the lion's attention, Tony flew low and attempted to monitor his speed. After two or three minutes of this, he came to a low brick wall. Making a split second decision, he landed in front of it and waited for the lion to get close.

At what seemed to be the last possible second, Tony shot upwards.

The lion, surprised and unused to this kind of game, did his best to grab at Tony as he took off. Just missing the strange metal man, the lion found himself crashed face first into a wall. A second later, there was a _thud_ as the lion's unconscious body fell to the ground.

"And I didn't even have to kill him," Tony cheered to himself.

He looked around for his next destination as she asked, "What's next, JARVIS?"

"It appears, sir, that the rest of the Avengers have arrived and taken care of the other dangers for the moment. They are currently meeting in the middle of the square," the AI supplied.

"Thanks JARVIS," Tony said. He once again took off and headed to meet up with the rest of team.

Upon arriving, he found everyone but Thor there.

"Thor, where are you?" he asked through the comm in his suit.

"I am having trouble locating this "Zookeeper" figure," Thor replied. "He was here a few moments ago, before he suddenly disappeared into thin air."

Tony looked at the rest of the team standing around him. "We should go help him," Tony suggested. "Maybe this guy has powers that we don't know about."

"I agree," Steve replied nodding his head. "You go ahead, Tony."

"Got it, Cap," Tony replied as he took off.

"JARVIS, where exactly is Thor?" Tony asked.

In response, a map of the surrounding area popped onto the screen in front of Tony with a red blinking destination dot not too far away.

"Should be there in just a few minutes," Tony said to Thor.

"I still can't find him, Tony," Thor replied. "I'm starting to believe that he truly did vanish into thin air."

"Maybe he did," Tony replied, thinking back to their earlier conversation about the so-called "mini-Tesseracts."

Thor didn't respond to that. but Tony figured that a response wasn't really needed. He was only three or so minutes out anyway, so he would be able to investigate the area in just a few moments.

However, as fate would have it, Tony wouldn't get the chance to investigate the spot where the Zookeeper had been.

As he flew towards Thor, out of the sight of all of his team members, Tony felt a pressure start to push on his head. Confused, Tony asked, "JARVIS, what's going on?"

"Sir, I'm getting strange readings from the air around us. They seem to be consistent with the anomalies that you and Dr. Fridder were investigating the other day."

"Shit," Tony said to himself.

"Steve?" Tony asked into his comm. When no one responded, he asked again. "Steve? Are you there?"

"The communicator appears to be unsuccessful, sir. I cannot establish any kind of communications link at the moment," the AI replied in his typical unemotional voice.

Meanwhile, between the lack of comms and the increasing pressure in his head, Tony was starting to freak out.

The pain continued to increase, and Tony shouted out in a panic, "JARVIS, what's going on?!"

"We seem to be enveloped in some sort of gravitational anomaly. It is growing in size."

Just as JARVIS spoke, Tony's headache reached its climax. He didn't really comprehend what JARVIS had said. All he knew was that his headache was now fading along with his consciousness.

The last things he perceived before losing consciousness, was the sky darkening and the air growing cold, even inside his suit.

Steve and the rest of the team arrived a few minutes later to find Thor standing alone in the middle of an abandoned street.

"Where's Tony?" Natasha asked, stepping off her motorcycle as Clint and Steve also dismounted theirs. The Hulk landed next to them with a crash, after having swung himself off the nearest building.

"I don't know," Thor said, turning to face them. "He told me that he would only be a few minutes, and that was a few minutes ago."

"Maybe he got distracted?" Steve asked.

"Maybe someone was selling Thin Mints? He has seemed awfully obsessed with those these past few days," Clint added.

"I don't think Tony's _that_ irresponsible," Natasha replied.

"Then where is he?" Steve challenged.

"How should I know? Maybe he ran into trouble?" Natasha suggested.

"Wouldn't he have told us?" Clint asked.

"Knowing Tony, he probably wouldn't," the Captain said.

"Then should we wait for him here?" Thor asked.

"Well, he is the only who can take the readings," Steve said. "Unless we can get Banner back into human form." He regarded the Hulk. "Can we talk with Bruce?" Steve asked him.

The Hulk roared in response.

"Guess not," Natasha commented.

"So are we waiting here then?" Clint asked.

"Guess so," replied Steve.

 **That's it for now. See you all next time!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Hey guys, I'm back! Kind of. I'll post when I can, but I'm a double major engineering student, which doesn't leave me with a lot of time of my hands. Anyway, I apologize in advance if any characters seem off. Just let me know. Also, I'm sure there are plenty of typos, I again apologize in advance. Oh, and review because it lets me know how I'm doing and makes me feel appreciated.**

 **Disclamer: I don't own Marvel or DC.**

Barry Allen had seen a lot of strange things in his life. There had been super-villains, time-travellers, aliens, magic, and more than enough questionably scientific science to last a lifetime. Oh, and one couldn't forget about his own ability to harness the so-called "speed force." However, a red and gold robot suddenly popping into existence a mere 100 feet above his head and then, subsequently, crashing to the earth on the other side of the park he was in with his girlfriend, Iris West, was certainly one of the stranger things that he had encountered. Of course, he supposed that he shouldn't be surprised by this turn of events. After all, people had randomly been popping up all around the world in the last few months.

"Should you go check on that?" Iris asked, well aware of her boyfriend's duties as a superhero.

Barry grimaced and sighed. "Probably," he said in reply to her question.

He started to turn to go, but Iris grabbed his arm before he could disappear. "There's no reason why you have to in costume… or alone," she said with a sly smile.

Barry regarded her for a second and opened his mouth to protest but Iris was already dragging him up the small rise that blocked the couple's view of the fallen metal object. "We can at least walk up this hill together to determine if it's dangerous or not before you suit up. Besides, wouldn't the League know if it posed a threat the minute it appeared?"

"Not necessarily," Barry said in reply to her question. However, he didn't stop her from dragging him to the top of the rise where they could both survey the situation.

Upon reaching the top, they found a scene like what one might expect after something comes crashing to earth at a high velocity.

The once pristine green grass of the field was now marred by a deep brown gash of soil that stopped just short of the sidewalk surrounding the park. At the far end of the gash, Barry could just glimpse the glint of red and gold metal peeking out from underneath the pile of earth. There was no movement from the grounded projectile. Also, somewhat surprisingly, there were no onlookers either, probably owing to a combination of the time of day and the constant presence of super-villains in and around Central City. It seemed that things randomly falling from the sky had become either too frightening or too commonplace to attract a crowd anymore.

"Looks safe to me," Iris said as she started to make her way down the other side of the rise towards the glinting metal object.

Barry made to grab her, but she was already just out of his grasp. He opened his mouth once again in protest before shutting it when he realized that arguing with her was probably useless. She was just as headstrong as her father.

Making a strangled noise that was some sort of cross between a groan and a sigh, he started to follow her.

Meanwhile, in another park, in another universe, a group of five superheroes commonly known as the Avengers were starting to get very impatient.

"Okay, clearly Stark has ditched us. He's probably sitting back at the tower sipping wine and laughing while watching us using a satellite that he hacked for his own personal amusement," Natasha said, letting herself substitute anger for the growing worry that she could feel settling in her stomach. Of course, her claim wasn't that far off the mark from something that Tony might do simply because he was bored.

"Does Tony drink wine?" Clint asked. "Usually he has something stronger."

"Okay, vodka then," Natasha said.

Clint frowned, "Knowing Tony it would probably be Scotch."

"Scottish?" Thor asked. "How does one drink Scottish? I thought that that was a nationality?"

"It is," Captain America replied unhelpfully as he stared at something off into the distance.

"Something wrong Cap?" Clint asked, noticing Steve's serious expression.

"I think Tony's in some sort of trouble," Steve replied. "I mean, he can certainly be an ass, but he isn't that much of an ass."

All the Avengers, even the Hulk, paused in anticipation for a moment, waiting for Tony's inevitable comment on the fact that Captain America had just cussed (which really was a rare occasion) even though they were all well aware that Tony wasn't there. It seemed to be a conditioned response among the group.

After the moment of silence, during which a seed of real concern managed to plant itself in each and every one of their stomachs, there was a slight commotion as the Hulk started to shrink and turn back into a more human color and form. A second later, Bruce Banner was standing before them, desperately clutching onto the last remnants of his stretched and tattered pants. He squinted at all of them, really wishing that he had his glasses, before clearing his throat and announcing, "The Big Guy seems to have thought about something that all of you have missed."

"What is that?" Thor asked, voicing the question for the whole group.

"Earlier today, Tony was talking about all the people who have been vanishing lately and how it seems that all the people investigating the vanishings have vanished as well…" he trailed off.

"Yeah, so?" Clint asked.

There was a moment of silence as Bruce waited for them to piece it together.

Suddenly, out of seemingly nowhere, Steve exclaimed, "Tony was investigating the vanishings!" realizing what Bruce had been hinting at.

Natasha, catching on fast, asked, "So, does this mean that we'll vanish now, too?"

"Well… we haven't done any _actual_ investigating so… probabl _y_ not?" Bruce replied, uncertainly.

"We're about to do some investigating," Steve said.

"I agree," Clint added. "Tony may be more than a little full of himself, but he's always there when we or the world really needs him. We have to find him and get him back."

"I'm in," Natasha consented.

"Jane, too," Thor commanded.

"Jane, too," Bruce agreed.

"Well, we are all committed then, no matter the consequences. Besides, I'm sure that Fury already has some backup plan lying around to handle things if we all disappear anyways," Steve commented.

"I wouldn't put it past him, " Clint replied.


End file.
